Jason Todd, a character that has bucked authoritarians (be it Bruce or regimes) throughout his history, is working for Magistrate, but suddenly has "second thoughts" about it? No. It makes no sense for his character. This isn't even regression. This is plain out of character.
Heck, it makes way more sense for him being the one pulling a Batman (which is the vibe that the covers gave me when I was scrolling through them)
No one that's been following Jason since he came back would think this premise makes any sense. No one.
Some fun, novel stuff. Maybe some cool ideas stick, maybe some don't. I'm sure as is the case with a two month stop-gap event there's not exactly going to be a lot of long, consistent, meaningful threads. Mostly just a lot of what-ifs and short stories with novel concepts, radical designwork and "wouldn't it be neat?" busywork. But there's some cool takeaways that can come from that sort of thing.
Retro315 no more. Anonymity is so 2005.
retrowarbird.blogspot.com
Which solicitation?
I've only found "Also in this issue, Jason Todd is a haunted man. He's working a job he hates on the violent streets of Gotham City as a mask hunter for the Magistrate! He takes contracts to catch villains—or heroes—and brings them in alive—mostly. But when the Red Hood gang reemerges, Jason must solve a mystery that could doom the city."
I'm still so confused about that whole event.
I wrote that post before seeing any summaries about the stories. And still, I like Williamson as a writer, so I'm excited for him to be writing Red Hood...
... Because this. I've learned that making knee jerk reactions isn't worth it. i've also learned to pay hardly any attention to covers or solicitation summaries. We are still a ways away. Everything may not be as it seems. We don't know how Jason got roped into working there, what his exact motives were, or what exactly lead to it. And if it is as it may seem... it's just two months of stand-in, filler stories anyway. It's not the new normal.
If it's that solicit, it can be read as him working from the inside and trying to stop the regime from discovering something that endangers the others. Except, no one would believe that Jason works for this Magistrate in universe. The outlaw vigilante working for this dictatorship. Sure.
Tim would be a better fit. Or Dick, or Babs: they're more lawfull* for the outside viewer, they"d be lelieabable in that role.
I doubt the story is going to be deep or complex. It's a two months story, precisely.
Last edited by Zaresh; 10-15-2020 at 10:08 AM.
Thoughts:
- It wouldn't be the future without a post-apocalyptic Gotham .
- Looks like Bruce is back to the basic Rebirth look? I guess he's a little too worse for wear to appear as "classic Batman"
- So if Harley's in prison and gone full punk, I wonder who the third Siren is now. And what does Future State Ivy look like?
- Where's Barbara? I don't see her mentioned in any of this and we have redesigns for everybody except her and Damian.
- Luke seems to have two Batman designs. One that resembles the Rebirth look and an all black look like his Batwing design in the Justice League Future State title.
- Tim is Robin to the very end. Steph gets to be in two books though, which is nice.
I don't have a lot of interest in this, but I do like the new Batman design. Even Bruce's new Batman design looks pretty interesting. Although I feel like the new Batman is a bit redundant if Bruce is also running around as Batman at the same time. I guess a lot changed after 5G kind of fell apart, but if they are going to go with a new Batman, who I guess is Luke, then Bruce needs to be a bit more removed maybe. Dunno though. Have to wait to see what the Magistrate story is exactly.
Generally all the new designs look interesting or fun except for Nightwing's and Katana's. Punchline becoming Harley Quinn was unexpected, lol.